Telling Lies
by kippersvindaloo
Summary: A late-night conversation in the bunk room


AN: This story doesn't take place in any specific series; it has to be pre-"Stoke Me a Clipper", but you can put it wherever you want before then. I did take a few liberties with the mending of the drive plate story, but hopefully nothing too jarring. Another thank-you to the Feedback People (as opposed to the Potato People, who I hope never to hear from). Also, a slight warning—the most tasteless joke I've ever made is in this story. I apologize in advance.

Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, and I'm not making any money from this, so please don't sue me.

**Telling Lies**

"What's the worst lie you've ever told?" Lister asked Rimmer one night.

"Define worst," Rimmer said. "Worst as in you felt horrible about it, or worst as in led to the death of five children?"

Lister couldn't help gaping in surprise. "You've told a lie that killed five kids?"

"No!" Rimmer said, sounding defensive. "It was only two, and they should've been smart enough to realize they weren't really going to get candy if they stepped in front of that speeding bus."

"I can't believe you, man," Lister said, shaking his head. "Every time I think you can't get any worse, somehow you do."

"Well, excellent conversation, Lister. We've gone from lies to how terrible I am in the course of…" Rimmer checked his watch. "Ah. Thirty seconds. That's a new record. Good night."

"No, okay, let's get back to the question I asked," Lister said.

Rimmer looked pensive. "The worst lie?"

"Yeah," Lister said.

"Well, there was the time I said I was a woman on my ship transfer application in the hopes of getting a female roommate," Rimmer said.

Lister smiled. "You did that? Really?"

"It didn't work," Rimmer said. "Somehow the name 'Arnold' was a dead giveaway."

"But that kind of move takes guts. I mean, it's something I would do," Lister said.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better about it?" Rimmer asked, sounding as if he were about to be ill.

"So I'm not supposed to say how terrible you are, but it's okay if you say it to me?" Lister asked.

"I just don't see any benefit in comparing my behavior to yours," Rimmer said.

"Smeg, Rimmer, I'm trying to be friendly! Why can't you ever bring yourself to do that?"

"Maybe it's not in my program," Rimmer said.

Lister rolled his eyes. "You're not a computer program. You're a person."

"No, Lister, I'm a hologram who used to be a person. I'm a computer simulation of the person I was, which means I am a computer program. So any fault you find with me might be in the code."

"I'm sure it's the code," Lister said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"I've thought a lot about this," Rimmer said. "How can a computer know what I'd be like? It's as likely to get me wrong as it is to get me right."

"I'd say it came pretty close," Lister said.

"But that's just it," Rimmer said, sounding unusually worried. "We'll never know for sure, will we? I'll never know, because this is all that's left of me." He was quiet for a minute. "What really worries me is if I can't change."

"You never changed anyway," Lister said.

"No, but I might have if I'd lived longer," Rimmer said. "But if I'm a program, there might not be any way for me to grow and change. Which means I'll be like this forever."

"Is that bad?" Lister asked.

"Of course it's bad. It's terrible! I'll be like the fat horrible uncle who always tells the same joke every time he comes to visit, and everyone's too polite to tell him they've heard the joke a million times before," Rimmer said.

"Don't worry, Rimmer. I'm not polite. I'll tell you," Lister said.

"See? Why do you do that? I'm trying to have a serious conversation, and you have to throw in a punchy one-liner," Rimmer said.

"I'm being serious," Lister said. "I don't think you're a fat uncle, Rimmer."

Rimmer sighed. "Well, anyway. What about you?"

"No, I'm not a fat uncle either," Lister said.

"I mean what was the worst lie you ever told?" Rimmer asked.

"You didn't tell me yours yet," Lister said.

"I told you one; I told you about the ship transfer form. I'm not going to tell you everything I've ever done while you listen and take notes," Rimmer said.

Lister thought for a minute. "Well…once I told me grandmother I was going out drinking with some friends."

"What did you actually do?" Rimmer asked.

"I went to the library," Lister said.

Rimmer leaned just over the edge of his bunk so he could see Lister's face. "You did not."

Lister nodded. "I did."

Rimmer looked supremely disturbed. "You've been in a library?"

"There was this girl I knew who helped out there," Lister said. "She used to take me into the children's room and we'd…"

"I don't want to know!" Rimmer interrupted. "That's horrible."

"It's not like there were any kids in there," Lister said. "The worst thing that ever happened was the time I rolled over on the puppets. I got a marionette in the wrong place and couldn't sit down for a week."

"So let me get this straight," Rimmer said. "You lied to your grandmother about going drinking when you were really shagging a librarian."

"That's basically it, yeah," Lister said.

"You are a very strange man," Rimmer said.

"Okay, Mr. Normal, time for another one of yours," Lister said.

Rimmer was unnaturally silent.

Lister peeked over the edge of his bunk; maybe Rimmer had fallen asleep. "Rimmer?"

"I lied when I said I didn't need any help fixing the drive plate," Rimmer said.

Lister hadn't expected an answer so personal. "What?"

"The captain didn't want me doing it alone. Actually, he didn't want me to do it at all, but I begged him to let me take on more responsibility, and he finally agreed. He said since you were in stasis I should get someone to come with me and make sure I did it right." Rimmer paused. "I knew what everyone thought of me, that I was a mental incompetent who couldn't find his way out of a paper bag with a chainsaw and hedge trimmers. I wanted to do something to prove them wrong. I wanted to fix it alone so they'd see that they'd misjudged me, that I really was elite Space Corps material. And I wound up proving their point."

"What did you do wrong, anyway?" Lister asked.

"I forgot to weld it shut," Rimmer said. "I did everything else right, but left out the one thing that might've saved the entire crew…and me. Captain Hollister saw me later and he asked me if I'd gotten someone to help me with the repair, and I said yes."

"What would've happened if you'd said no?" Lister asked.

Rimmer shrugged. "Who knows? They might've found the problem, but they might not. They might've put me in stasis and saved my life." Rimmer made a sound that was almost a laugh, but not quite. "Just another example of how everything goes wrong for me."

"Sorry," Lister said, trying to come up with a personal story of his own that might make Rimmer feel a little better.

"I blame the chain of command," Rimmer said.

Lister frowned. "What?"

"They knew what kind of technician I was. Somebody should've been dispatched to check my work," Rimmer said. "It would be easy enough to find out whether I'd gotten someone else to help me. All they had to do was ask."

"Ask twelve hundred people?" Lister asked.

"Not all twelve hundred were qualified to help me," Rimmer said. "They should've checked my work. Then none of this would've happened."

Lister could feel his sympathy for Rimmer ebbing. "Do you realize how crazy that sounds?"

"Please, Lister. It's not as if you know anything about command procedures," Rimmer said.

"You know the biggest lie you've ever told?" Lister said. He could feel his anger rising within him, and he knew he was about to say something he would hate himself for saying later, but it was the truth. "That whatever happens, whatever goes wrong in your life, it's not your fault. It's always somebody else—your parents, your brothers, me, the officers on Red Dwarf. But not you. Never you. You are in no way responsible for any smegging thing you do."

"There were other people involved," Rimmer said, but his voice faltered.

"What is it with you?" Lister asked. "Why can't you just admit you screwed up? Everybody does—maybe not as much as you, but still. You were supposed to get help. You didn't get it. You repaired the drive plate wrong and the radiation leak happened. Aliens didn't jump into the conduit and cause the leak, Rimmer. You did."

"Stop it," Rimmer said, but he sounded shaken and uncertain of himself.

"You can't blame anyone else for this, man. It's entirely your fault," Lister said. He had gone too far and he knew it, but just once he wanted Rimmer to take responsibility for something he'd done instead of trying to weasel out of it.

"Well, that's nothing new, is it?" Rimmer said, the acid rising in his tone. "I don't think you realize how much I've been told that everything is my fault, Lister. Frank's got the flu? Well, it must be my fault; didn't I have mates who were sick? Passed out in the middle of class? My fault again. Stupid me, I hadn't eaten for a week because I was no good at astronavigation. By choice, of course. I was stubborn, the classic problem child. Holly's calibrated wrong? Hmm, I think I was suspiciously close to the controls yesterday. I might've breathed on them wrong and ruined them permanently." Rimmer was breathing hard now, entirely wrapped up in acrimony. "I was the only one who ever suggested that problems might not always be my fault, and even I didn't believe it. So yes. Fine. I admit it. I exist, therefore it's all my fault."

"I'm not saying that," Lister said. He was already beginning to feel guilty about his earlier outburst.

"Well, why not say it?" Rimmer asked. "Why not shout it to the heavens? It's what you think. But as long as we're being completely honest, I've got a little something I'd like to tell you."

Lister wasn't sure he wanted to hear it, but he thought he might as well ask. "What?"

"I'm going to tell you why I hate you," Rimmer said, his jaw working. "I'm going to explain to you why I absolutely cannot stand anything about you. Do you know why?"

"No," Lister said.

"Because you lived," Rimmer said, his words quiet and icy.

"That's it?" Lister asked.

"That's it?" Rimmer asked, looking incredulous. "Don't you think that's enough?"

"I can't help that I lived," Lister said. "It wasn't part of a plan. I didn't think, 'Rimmer's sure to cause some kind of accident that'll wipe out the crew, so I'd better get into stasis while I can.' It was a fluke."

"That only makes it worse, Lister," Rimmer said. "You didn't even want anything from life."

"Oh, yeah, that's right, Rimmer," Lister said. "I didn't want anything. Never wanted a girlfriend. Never had any plans to go anywhere or do anything."

"None that counted," Rimmer said.

"This is why we shouldn't talk to each other," Lister said.

"No," Rimmer said, getting angry again. "You're not doing that this time. You're not starting the conversation and then stopping it unilaterally when you don't like what we're talking about. You wanted a discussion, and we're smegging well having one."

"About how much you hate me?" Lister asked.

Rimmer's face twitched as he tried to think of a response, and he turned around to collect himself.

"You brought it up," Lister said. "Go ahead. Get it out. Tell me if it makes you feel better."

When Rimmer did speak again, he sounded somewhat calmer and more level. "I cannot believe that I deserved to die the way I did."

Maybe Rimmer would never have sympathy for Lister, but Lister felt bad for Rimmer. Sometimes Lister wondered how he would take it if he'd been the one to become a hologram and Rimmer had been the survivor. No matter how Lister imagined it, it would be hard.

"I don't think so either," Lister said. "Nobody deserves that."

Rimmer turned around, looking at Lister, puzzled. "What are you talking about? You lived."

"Yeah, and?" Lister said. "I don't think I lived because I did something more deserving than you, Rimmer. If you'd been in stasis and I'd fixed the drive plate, I probably would've made a mess of it as well."

Rimmer shook his head. "You would've asked for help."

"Maybe. Maybe not," Lister said. "But I don't think I'm alive because of any terrific thing I did that you didn't do. I think it's completely random."

Rimmer stared at the carpet. "It must be easier believing that."

"I think it is," Lister said. "Listen, Rimmer, I feel bad about all that stuff I said…"

"Lister, if this speech is going to end with 'Love means never having to say you're sorry,' I'll have to come back to life and throttle you," Rimmer said.

"Go ahead," Lister said, a slight smile on his face.

"I'm working on it," Rimmer said.

Lister nodded. "Can we call a truce for the night?"

"All right," Rimmer said. "Does that mean we have to continue shouting at each other in the morning?"

"I think so," Lister said, making sure there was enough humor in his voice for Rimmer to know it was a joke.

Rimmer nodded. "Well, as long as that's settled." He climbed back into his bunk. "Goodnight."

"Night," Lister said.

But neither one of them got much sleep that night.

THE END


End file.
